This reference to West Virginia being part of the Confederacy might at first seem odd to modern readers. In the real world, after all, West Virginia was formed precisely because it didn't agree with Virginia's secession from the Union. However, for about half the duration of the Civil War, what we now know as West Virginia would have been nominally part of Virginia, and so part of a seceded state. Even until Lee's surrender — well after the date of Johnson's letter in Blood and Hope — West Virginian territory was still hotly contested by Confederate guerrillas.